Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Kage848]

I'm sure people will have to edit it in the XML file. just like with NDT (Near Death Trauma). There needs to be a penalty to dying. its a survival game and people use dying to get around "annoying" mechanics because they know that if they kill themselves that they will be back to their old self with out the annoying 10-30 min debuff.

 

A 25% xp "tax" per death is a good one. it can easily be off set by the XP modifier slider. So idk why people are crying about it. go play creative mode if you don't like survival and the consequence of dying.

 

Let me be clear. I'm ok with it. But others wont be. Or maybe I'm wrong. Who knows.

 

Ps: going to get your bag is all the penalty I think the game needs. Having a double penalty is overboard imho. I like the exp penalty better tbh so I won't be dropping anything on death.

 

Pss: people that abuse death to travel dont bother me. Does not effect my game one bit.

[MechanicalLens]

Even if you're at gamestage of 1, there will always be radiated and feral zombies within the t5 buildings. If you want proof, just create a creative test world in Navezgane and fly to the top of the Shotgun Messiah Factory, for instance.

[Gazz]

Right now there is a hard loot list limit, which y'all are pretty close to maxing out (255 I think), so adding in special custom loot would get you even closer to that hard cap, so

The max cap for lootcontainer ids is 1023.

[Kage848]

Kage. Can you tell us how you feel about ammo in A17, especially regarding higher tier quests?

 

I thought T5 quests were bad. I stopped doing then ages ago. But that might have been a mistake. They can give an ammo reward, although not often. And I can sell that useless 5th green auger for dukes to buy ammo.

 

Thing i hated about t5 quests in a17, and maybe a18 too, is the t5 tower takes 2 days to complete. I hate having to spend the night there so I dont fail the quest. I'm not going through it at night and if i just stay somewhere quiet for the night it's a boring waste of time when i could be home mining, building or whatever.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

The rewards don't match the trouble. I'd have it so the trader has high tier rewards for completing a t5. Like a cache of ammo, high end mods, mutated seeds, top tier weapons and armor, high end schematics and blueprints, and t5 quest only rewards.

 

This would not only make doing t5's worthwhile it would also make them a sought after endgame activity.

 

That's just how I see it anyway.

 

That's some good ideas there.

 

And to be fair I bet TFP will address this, sound like they already have.

 

I just think it needs to be talked about, on both sides. And let TFP balance as best they can.

[Kage848]

It should be obvious, we don't want players eating glass to get out of infection, dysentery, broken legs, etc. You are getting rewarded now by staying alive, you aren't losing XP. Feels great already. Your method is just reward and more reward. People would have their glass and eat it too with that design.

 

Our system takes away nothing. You die at level 42 you are always going to be level 42. It ensures people will avoid death no matter what, which they should, unless they think its a fair trade to get rid of infection to lose some XP. SOme will still eat glass, and we're fine with that now. Before no matter how you sliced it, people would suicide to get out of things because it was safe and convenient and had not much drawback. Now I think people will think twice and thank us for the game play it took to heal their leg or get rid of infection. Those "needs" produce great stories. Being stuck at a certain level might feel good to overcome.

 

If I had it my way I'd take away a full level, -5 to all attributes, gaining back 1 per day, respawn starving with 1 health and food and water how they were when you died. But thats my own hardcore version I'd like and realize that would be a nice mod and horrible for a retail release.

 

My god madmole. Thank the lord someone is there to tell you no lol.

 

Any chance we can get an option in sp to drop nothing on death? I dont think it's fair to double dip on death penalties. I'm sure you disagree but still, whatta say? 😁

[Kage848]

Its going to cost you ammo. Your reward is XP, possible better armor, guns, tools and gear you might find. Supplies, trader rewards, dukes... its all worth it. If you go in and expect to make gains on ammo then you need your head examined. The idea is the loot is worth it. That remains to be seen and is up to the RNG.

 

Well I will need to play alpha 18 to see what you guys have done.

 

But for alpha 17 i dont need any of that stuff in the t5 towers. It's the same stuff i can get anywhere else and save the ammo.

 

For my game, ammo is king. It helps me survive the towers and on horde night.

 

But I gatta say I'm excited to see what's in those towers to make up for using the game item I need more than anything else.

 

I think it's going to be really cool in, alpha 19?, when we can get unique, named?, armor and guns.

[Kage848]

You might as well sit in your mine all day then if stockpiling ammo is your goal. I want better gear (weapons, books, armor, mods, tools, more medicine) so I do the T5's.

 

Well I think I see what's going in here. You didnt do t5 quests in alpha 17. This makes this whole thing clear.

 

I guess I did misrepresent myself a bit. My fault. I don't nessisary NEED an ammo surplus from a t5 tower if theres other cool stuff to get. And from what your saying there will be cool stuff to get.

 

But will clearing a t5 tower get you anything specific you cant get anywhere else? Why would I do a t5 tower when I can clear a few lower tiers and maybe get more stuff and use less ammo?

 

Is it possible to make t5 towers drop stuff that cant be gotten elsewhere?

 

Or better yet can you make it so t5 quests give loot that you cant get elsewhere? And i dont mean augers, we only need 1 of those. I mean books, armor, weapons. I guess it's kinda like that now. But when I get my 4th green auger in a row i dont feel like doing the t5 quests anymore lol.

 

Sorry for the stream of consciousness post. I find the conversation interesting. Whatever you guys decide.

[Kage848]

That was my exact thought when I first heard of using an xp loss as the death penalty.

 

But honestly, I'll take that over having gimped stamina ANY day of the week.

 

-A

 

Me too. Let's just hope TFP dont implement hell levels. Or penalty levels 😯

[Kage848]

Even if you're at gamestage of 1, there will always be radiated and feral zombies within the t5 buildings. If you want proof, just create a creative test world in Navezgane and fly to the top of the Shotgun Messiah Factory, for instance.

 

Oh really? That's interesting. Also doesn't make much sense. The loot in there is the same as every other building 🤷♥♂️

[dhlmaster]

Question for the Testers; how is backpack/pocket space doing in a18?

 

Curious cause it sounds like there are quite a few more items that you'll pretty much always want to keep...?

 

Like all the new Books. Even though they appear to stack, that's only if you happen to get 2+ of the same one, right? so would guess if a POI run netted 3 books they most likely take up 3 slots.

 

And the different weapon 'parts', if scrapped (& are those also in loot tables?), compared to a17s Mech/Plastic Parts. Along with each weapon drop being unique.

 

Guessing that it's not quite as straight forward 'knowing' what to scrap/toss by reflex in a18?

 

Sounds like the books in a18 can just be read when you pick them up, so you shouldn't need inventory space for them.

[The Gronk]

Oh really? That's interesting. Also doesn't make much sense. The loot in there is the same as every other building 🤷♥♂️

 

It's not the normal loot he's after, it's the special loot boxes at the end of the dungeon crawl.

 

You can skip a huge chunk of the crawl by making your way to the roof of large POI's. It makes your escape route somewhat more treacherous, I've killed myself a few times doing this, but the risk/reward ratio is far higher. More risk but that's kind of balanced by the saving of ammo.

 

The crux of this problem is that the high value loot boxes are generally positioned as to be difficult for somebody entering the building on foot and their location is pretty damn predictable. Quite often they don't take into account somebody trying something brave* but ill-advised.

 

*The line between bravery and stupidity is often defined by whether you survive or not :-)

[Callum123456789]

wonder how the bug fixing is going along hopefully positively

[unholyjoe]

It doesn't break the AI if they are placed on the ground. It only does it when there is a pit underneath them.

There's an example.

 

short of showing a video (which i did make but will not show the public because of content), i did all of that already.

 

if someone sees something in a devs video.. chances are 1 or more builds later its already caught and fixed... sometimes even without a report.

 

we will find out after experimental drops if there is a different approach.

 

and as i noted... in the mean time, i did find a different exploit and reported it.

[MechanicalLens]

Yeah, but there's more loot in them compared to the average POI, and if there were only normal zombies inside, the player could simply scale to the top and avoid most of the horde night altogether. Besides, if it were just normal zombies, it would be an XP fest early on.

[A Nice Cup of Tea]

That was my exact thought when I first heard of using an xp loss as the death penalty.

 

But honestly, I'll take that over having gimped stamina ANY day of the week.

 

-A

 

I wouldn't.

 

Practically, there may not be that much difference between giving you a temporary penalty that you have to deal with (which will force you to be careful for the duration and hence gain less xp and loot) and making you re-gain experience that you lost. In the long run they may both result in around the same amount of slowed progress.

 

But psychologically they feel very different.

 

One of them is immersive. It makes you feel "I nearly died then, so I need to be careful till I've recovered". It feels like a natural consequence of nearly dying. Similarly, having dropped your stuff to escape and then having to go back to where you nearly died if you want to recover it also feels like a natural thing to do.

 

The other is the opposite of immersive. It just feels like you're arbitrarily having something taken away from you by the game as punishment. It feels much more like a deliberate "screw you" and less like a natural consequence of dying.

 

In fact, I think that's the crux of the matter.

 

Currently, we have a death penalty - a consequence of (near) death. The A18 system takes away the death penalty and gives you a death punishment instead.

 

It's like if they decided that you'll no longer break your leg when falling because it isn't enough of a discouragement, so instead the game will delete your Forge when you fall to discourage you from doing it. One of them feels like the natural consequences of your action, while the other is just an arbitrary punishment.

[RipClaw]

It's not the normal loot he's after, it's the special loot boxes at the end of the dungeon crawl.

 

The loot on the roof of the T5 building is nothing special. I regularly do T5 quests and unless it's a clear quest I don't fight my way up to get the loot there. The best I can hope for are some mods. The same mods I can also get in every T3 building at the end of the dungeon crawl. I clear a T3 building like the bear den in about 5 minutes.

[Spiked_Coffee]

I'm not going through it at night and if i just stay somewhere quiet for the night it's a boring waste of time when i could be home mining, building or whatever.

 

In all seriousness why not continue the T5 at night? At your stage the difference between day and night in a big POI is what 10 zombies run that wouldn't normally....in the whole building? They're so full of feral's I don't tend to notice. I also die a lot....but that's not dependent on day or night

[Kage848]

In all seriousness why not continue the T5 at night? At your stage the difference between day and night in a big POI is what 10 zombies run that wouldn't normally....in the whole building? They're so full of feral's I don't tend to notice. I also die a lot....but that's not dependent on day or night

 

It's a fair point. But still does make it a tad harder and uses a bit more ammo. Maybe I should sometime though. Would be exciting lol

[Viktoriusiii]

[...]

 

You are right and wrong.

You definatly have an argument about it beeing immersive. But there are three things:

1. I could say "why have I lost the ability to craft 'x' after i died that makes no sense" but I could also say: "after this near death experience i still have a concussion which means I learn slower"

It is all a matter of how far your suspension of disbelieve is willing to stretch.

 

but more importantly

2. while it was "more immersive" it was still not immersive, I just saw myself get eaten by zombies. No way in hell did I survive that.

 

but what is most important:

 

3. fun trumps realism in this case.

The realism/immersiveness gain of this penalty was incredibly small. I never actually thought of your explanation before and I think most people haven't. Because it does not logicially lead you to that conclusion, even if it could be a valid explanation.

But this system did decrease the fun a players has DRASTICIALLY. For 15 minutes, you forgot recipes (needed to wait until beeing able to craft certain stuff and the right quality again), you were slower because oyu didnt have as much stamina, less inventory so even if you got back to your backpack, you were most likely overloaded, dealt less damage farmed less...

 

basicially it felt as if you were wasting time. Do you want to know what I did when I had that penalty? I tabbed out, waited until I was able to craft and run and farm again and continued afterwards.

It was basicially the definition of anti fun.

And that is why an unimmersive solution is better than a barely immersive anti fun one.

 

Yes it is kinda arbitrary... but you can just see it as a "blunt head trauma caused me to lose some memories of the last hour" or something.

[Aldranon]

In A17, two things have to happen before I go attack a T5 tower.

 

1) I loot the paper mill.

2) I have a fully tricked out T6 Shotgun (plus an AK or SMG is nice).

 

Optionally, it helps to be bored so I can do amazeballs stuff that I normally can't do.

[A Nice Cup of Tea]

You are right and wrong.

 

I just love it when I'm told that my feelings are "wrong" as if we're talking about some kind of objective fact. I know what I feel, man, and you can't tell me otherwise.

 

3. fun trumps realism in this case.

 

Not for me. For me, fun and realism are on the same side in this case. Losing xp is both less realistic and less fun than having a temporary penalty.

[MajorMunchy]

I just love it when I'm told that my feelings are "wrong" as if we're talking about some kind of objective fact. I know what I feel, man, and you can't tell me otherwise.

 

 

 

Not for me. For me, fun and realism are on the same side in this case. Losing xp is both less realistic and less fun than having a temporary penalty.

 

just relax and sip your tea mate

[Trankitas]

I don't know why, but I feel like the kraken is very close.

[Perlin_Worm]

The anxiety of losing my stuff and having it lay on the ground in a shady place is the worst death penalty for me. Anything additional is inconsequential.

[Bubo]

Another milestone towards A18

 

https://captiongenerator.com/1478762/Hitler-Finds-Out-A18-Was-Delayed

 

Hahahaa, love these!